Police Department

Spokane Police Activities League BBQ Tomorrow

Ofc. Teresa Fuller

Wednesday, August 19, 2015 at 7:10 p.m.

PAL players and their families are invited to join our end of summer BBQ celebration. Chief Straub, Mayor Condon and other community leaders will congratulate the youth on their participation in our six week program. Following the awards ceremony, families are invited to enjoy hamburgers and hot dogs.

After two successful years, PAL expanded to include three Spokane neighborhoods. We hosted 50 kids at Cannon Park in the West Central neighborhood, 50 kids at Harmon Park in the Hillyard neighborhood and 50 kids at Liberty Park in the East Central neighborhood. Thanks to our partnership with the City of Spokane’s Parks and Recreation Department, 35 kids received free swimming lessons as part of the PAL program. Following each session, players engaged in a STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math) activity hosted by Americorps VISTA volunteers and United Way.

In order to promote healthy, educational motivation, we focused on 5 core values (integrity, honesty, leadership, responsibility, and sportsmanship) and discussed these core values during each session. When youth demonstrated PAL’s core values, they were given raffle tickets and at the end of each session, the tickets were drawn for donated prizes, highlighting the importance of the core values. There will be an end of season raffle during the barbecue for larger prizes for participating youth. This year there will also be a Childhood Vaccination Clinic.

The program was initiated in the spring of 2013 as a partnership program developed by Spokane community leaders (including Operation Healthy Family, Eastside Reunion Association, Youth for Christ and Kingdom Fellowship Church Alliance) and the Spokane Police Department through the formation of a summer basketball league and related outreach activities. During the pilot project in 2013 we engaged 32 youth in positive athletic, academic and community service programs in an effort to help secure their path to a successful, healthy adulthood.

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